Shakespearean Acting
by The Logical Fallacy
Summary: Part 1 of "Rainbow Connection" series. The boy that Jim has a crush on asked him if he would be willing to join the school's play. What was he thinking? male!Claire/gay!Jim
1. He Loves Me

Jim had no idea what convinced him to do this.

_"Jim, if you fancy Mister Nunez, I submit that 'talking to' will be much more effective than 'staring at'."_

Oh. Yeah. That.

Jim was dumb enough to actually try and talk to Clair out in public with all of his girl-friends there. _God, what was I thinking_ he asked himself.

"Do you like Shakespeare?"

"What?"

"Do you like Shakespeare?"

"Shakespeare?"

"The school play. We're having trouble getting boys to audition."

Jim did not know anything about Shakespeare any more than Toby did, and it is unlikely that _Hamlet_ was about a pig with a crown like some cheap 2D platformer from the 90's. At least, that's what Toby told him.

"Come on, Jimbo. Take that plunge. You are always talking about how you want your life to be more exciting. What can be more exciting than asking someone out on-stage?"

"You come on, Tobes. I don't think _Romeo and Juliet_ is exactly the answer. Besides, I don't think he's into, you know... boys?"

"Jim, he's in the drama club _and_ hangs out with Darci and Mary all the time. Don't gay guys hang out with girls all the time?"

"Then what does that make you?"

"Oh ha ha. Look, all I'm saying is that you're never going to find out if you don't ask him. You got this."

* * *

Jim did not "got" this. In-fact, it's so "un-got" that it's got him.

... the point is is that Jim had no idea what he was doing.

Turns out that when Clair said that they had a shortage of boys for their upcoming play, it was not due to having no other boys present. It was because it was going to be an all-boy's play.

"In the Elizabethan Era of drama, the theater was considered a low-brow art. An under-appreciated avenue for the starving masses to express their creative energies born from innovations made not by design, but from limitation," said Mz. Janeth, flailing her arms like the drama queen that she was. "This year, we are going to be doing it the old-fashioned way. In Shakespeare's time, all of the roles were played by men. The women characters too, so we are going to do the same."

"How did the school let her get away with that?" Jim asked out loud, dumb-founded.

"She consulted the school board," said Clair, who Jim only noticed was standing right next to him that very moment. "They agreed to let her do this if she were to host an all-girl's play next semester. Impressive audition by the way. Loved the costume."

Jim coughed up a few half-words in what might have been Spanish, an idiosyncrasy that has become more frequent these days.

"I-I, uh, thanks."

"And that speech? Very inspiring."

"U-um, I heard it from somewhere."

If he told him that he heard it from a walking, talking Easter Island statue, or that his armor was retractable from some glowing amulet of destiny, he would call him crazy.

"Mz. Janeth said that she might put me in the leading role. I doubt it would be Romeo. With my luck, she'll make me Juliet. She probably has a dressed picked out and everything."

"I think you would look great in a dress." Jim deliberately bit his lip the moment he said it.

Clair's expression was unreadable.

"U-Uh, what I meant was that I think you would look great in anything."

_Foot, meet mouth._

"What I meant is that I'm just going to continue talking over there," as Jim did a 180 and starting walking the opposite direction, blocking his face with his monster of a script to hide his red face from anyone who might be watching.

Clair just smirked, more amused than anything.

* * *

"'Deny and refuse.' But he can't deny it. But Romeo can't not be a Montague, which means that Juliet..."

"'And I'll no longer be a Capulet," Clair said, finishing Mz. Janeth's lecture.

Turns out that Clair was right. He was cast into the role of the leading lady and he took it like a champ. Jim did not know how he was able to shift his voice so subtly that the lines sounded natural to him, but Jim believed him when he claimed to be Juliet.

_He's so great,_ Jim's brain conjured up.

"Jim?"

"Huh?"

"'Or, if thou wilt not, be sworn my love...'"

"Right. No, I-I got it. 'Love, deny, refuse.' I'm on it."

"Okay, then." Mz. Janeth continued, not impressed with Jim's head in the clouds. "Let's take it from 'Wherefore art...'"

"You okay?" Asked Clair.

_No. No I'm not okay._

"Yeah, I'm fine. Totally fine."

_Stop talking, Jim._

"You're going to need to be a bit more convincing if you're going to play Romeo."

_That's right. I'm playing the love interest. Your _love_ interest. And that's aside from the hulking stone monsters out to get me._

"I've just got some stuff going on."

"I know we don't know each other all that well, but we're going to be spending a lot of time together, so-"

"All right, all right! Act two, scene two, line 33."

_Mz. Janeth. The kind of timing one hates about math teachers. _

* * *

A part of Jim was terrified. Another relieved. And a little confused.

What was just another gym class where Steve was pushing his buttons, one thing led to another and Clair was on the ground, nursing a fat lip from a dodge ball that Jim threw. It was an accident of course. He was aiming at Steve and Clair was unlucky enough to walk in at that exact moment. He had to be escorted to the nurse's office.

Not only that but Mz. Janeth had demoted him to understudy. Not just any understudy, but _Steve's_ understudy. Whatever possessed Steve to join the drama club to play the leading role in an all-boy's production of a tragic romance was beyond Jim, but given that demented look Steve has been giving him ever since he decked him in the jaw, it was very likely done out of some unprovoked form of revenge.

Now he was at Clair's house, deciding to do some extra-curricular practice for the play and study session.

"...honestly, I'd rather be on stage with you, even if you are a total flake."

_Take THAT Steve!_ Jim's possessive side prodded. _Clair likes ME more!_

Clair's baby brother Enrique was bouncing in his little bouncer-thing, having already taken a liking to the teenaged stranger waving a glowing amulet in his face, the shiny trinket clearly entertaining to the little boy.

Clair walked in with a massive bowl of guacamole.

"Aw. He likes you." He set the bowl of chips and dip onto the table before he picked Enrique up. "Come on hermanito. Time to give hermano a study sesh."

With practiced ease, Clair was able to lul the baby to sleep, the sleeping baby visible in the safety of his crib upstairs through a small screen on his laptop.

Jim and Clair rehearsed their lines. Repeating sentence after, sentence. Scene after scene. They were already more than halfway through, making veiled confessions of love through outdated syntax before they decided that they needed a break.

"You might be unpolished, but at least I can take you seriously without that obnoxious whistle Steve's got in-between his teeth."

"Oh, yeah?" Jim laughed. That punch felt so good, and it still did.

"Yeah, and honestly, I don't think it has occurred to him yet that he's in a romance. He acts like a gorilla."

"He looks like a gorilla," Jim quipped. It just made Clair laugh harder.

"A shaved gorilla," Clair retorted.

"Hey, thanks again for this. I-I feel... I feel really bad about what's happening with the play. I know it means a lot to you."

"You know, I was super mad at you, but then I realized that you've got a lot more going on than people think."

"Yeah, I do." _Wait._ "I do?"

Clair put the script onto the table.

"Come on, Jim. You didn't think I invited you here just for more rehearsals, did you?" Clair pulled out an envelope from his backpack. "You can't just write something like this and not expect a conversation."

_Oh crap_, Jim shouted in his head. A cold sweat formed on the back of his neck.

Jim had wrote that letter as something of a confession of affection when he thought that Draal was going to kill him. He wrote ones for Toby and his mom too, but this one was special. He wasted the most paper trying to put into words what he wanted to say to him. He all but said plane as day "I'm in love with you" in pen at the end of it. He _kissed_ the damn envelope before he put it away.

"You have to 'battle monsters'? 'Saving he world in which we know'? 'So many things left unsaid'?"

"Uh..."

"What monsters are you battling? I mean, we all have stuff we've got to go through. Are you some kind of trouble?"

_...wait, he thinks I was being metaphorical. ...oh! I got it!_

"I was... in an exploring stage. Not successful."

_Sounded a lot better in my head. Dammit._

Clair's hand grabbed Jim's.

_ALERT! ALERT! BRAIN FAILING! EMERGENCY!_

"Your words are beautiful, Jim. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I don't know. There's some sentimental stuff at the end that I thought was... kinda sweet."

As Clair averted his gaze, Jim could swear that he was blushing a little.

_GOING CRITICAL! GOING CRITICAL! SAY SOMETHING, DAMMIT!_

"...really?"

_DAMMIT LAKE, YOU'RE SUCH A LOSER!_

"If you ever need someone to talk to about 'the monsters,' you can talk to me."

* * *

**A part of me likes to think that while Jim's outer personality is rather plane and soft-spoken, his inner monologue is much more cynical. Kind of like how you act all polite at your job or around relatives, but in your head you're making sarcastic jokes at their expense.**

**Anyway, I've been meaning to make some male!Clair/gay!Jim fics because there is a serious lack of them. I would have thought that more would exist, but only one exists on DeviantArt and Wattpad, and it's _really_ short. Jim and Claire as they are are still my favorite couple of the series, _but I gots my needs, man!_ I was thinking of writing more of these (even a few _smutty_ ones if you know what I mean). If you have any good ideas for what these two could do together, let me know. M'kay?**


	2. He Loves Me Not

Jim was angry. Well, not angry exactly. It was more like viciously attacking a strawman of himself internally for everything that has happened.

He has not been saying anything about "the monsters" to Clair, but he doubts Clair would ever want to talk to him again, especially after what happened. Clair asked him if he could look after his baby brother while he went out to see Papa Skull. By the end of the night, both he and his parents think he threw some wild party at their house, half of their home looking as though the concert Clair attended spent the after-party there. Never mind the fact that Clair now has a crass, foul-mouthed changeling impersonating his baby brother.

While all of this was going on in his head, he was being trained how to properly wield a sword and his lack of focus was showing. With nothing but a step to the right, Draal parried him and the momentum left Jim swinging until he hit the ground. Boom, dead again.

"Were this an actual battle, trollhunter, you would have been deprived of your right leg, three fingers and your gronk-nuks."

"Sorry, I guess I'm a little distracted tonight."

Draal hears his distraction and raises him another lunge as he restarted their spar.

"Bular will use your distraction as an opportunity to cleave your head from your shoulders. What has you distracted this night?"

"You wouldn't understand."

It could have been something Jim said, since Draal answered Jim's dismissal with a flip, Jim's face flat on the grass and his neck pinned by the handle of his spear.

"I am a son of the former trollhunter, trollhunter. Don't presume that I wouldn't-"

"I'm a little preoccupied about kissing Clair."

"...I don't understand."

Draal unpinned him.

"The school play _Romeo and Juliet_. We're rehearsing the kissing scene and I have to kiss Clair tomorrow."

"'Kissing'? What is this 'kissing'?"

_Do I seriously have to have this conversation right now?_

"When two people like each other, they put their mouths together, and depending on how much you like them, the longer the kiss. Sometimes for hours."

Draal took a moment to process this, pressing his fingertips together.

"Ergh. Disgusting. Killing sounds easier."

_You have no idea._

"Draal, I really like Clair. If I blow our first kiss, I might not get a second, or a third."

"You're afraid."

"I know, I know."

_Rule #1 in trollhunting: always be afraid. But that's when facing trolls, not boys. At least, not any boys I want to be with. Right?_

"Your telling me that this 'Clair' girl has you afraid because you have to mush lips with her."

Jim was careful not to say anything about Clair, or at least his crush on him, around Blinky, Aaarrrgghh! or Draal. While his mom and Toby are supportive, Jim was no stranger to homophobia - especially from Steve and his various, uncreative slurs - and he has learned to take that sort of thing in stride. With trolls on the other hand, he has absolutely _no_ idea how the trolls in trollmarket would react. They already hate him for being a fragile human teenager. For all he knew, they were the type to have their gay kids castrated as some type of conversion therapy, or some other nightmarish custom they could threaten him with. Best worry about it on his own time.

"I once had similar stirrings for an impure."

Jim cocked his eyebrow. He was not sure what "impure" means, but that sounds familiar.

"If this 'Clair' is getting in the way of your duties as trollhunter, then the most sensible option is to keep away from her. A trollhunter has already died because of my lack of action and if one of these 'girls', as you humans call them, will do the same to you, then best wash your hands of the problem."

"Yeah, I don't think that's happening. We go to the same school and I can't avoid that."

_Anymore than I already have, anyway._

"Why not?"

"Because if I don't go to school, then I'll get in trouble, and if I get in trouble, then how am I going to be an effective anything? We can't let any human know about all of this, right?"

Draal sat down and gave a thoughtful look.

"Well, the only other way I can see out of this is a grit-shaka."

"Sounds like a protein shake."

"A what? No, a grit-shaka is a totem. A gumm-gumm artifact that Gunmar gave his forces to make them fearless in battle."

"That sounds rad. Where can I get one of those?"

"Nowhere, because you aren't going to use one."

"Oh come on!"

_Why tell me about it if you won't let me use one? It sounds crazy useful._

"No. The first rule of the trollhunter is _always be afraid_. Gunmar gave them to his forces because he needed berserkers to thin out his enemies forces at the expense of their lives. They were pawns meant to die. If I gave one to you, you will only get yourself killed and I won't have that on my conscience."

* * *

The next day, Mr. Strickler was not in class. There was no meaningful explanation about where their absent History teacher was from Coach Lawrence, who decided that the topic for today was to go over the Machine Authority's invasion of the western quadrant of the Spaghetti Nebula in _Gun Robot 3_. While Jim thought that _Gun Robot 2_ was one of the greatest sequels ever to be put to film, he was less than enthusiastic about _Gun Robot 3_. Even if he did like it, Clair was still only a few seats ahead of him and he was up half of the night thinking about the kiss.

"So, today's the big day. El smoocho, doth yonder."

_You don't think I know that, Toby?_

"Got any breath mints?"

"I got sweaty palms. What if I do it weird? What if I can't breathe? Look at him. Look at him! How can he be so calm?!"

"Jim, you fight monsters every night. You can handle rehearsal."

"Yeah, and one of those monsters wrecked Clair's house and got both of us in trouble. He hates me!" Jim banged his forehead on his desk, causing one of the students behind him to _ssshhh_ him.

"You don't know that, Jim."

"Yes I do."

"No, you don't know that."

"I do actually."

"No, you don't!"

"Coach Lawrence? Jim took my seat."

Jim and Toby looked up. It was Clair's friend Mary, her finger right in Jim's face.

"Lake, give her back her seat," said Coach Lawrence, not even looking away from his magazine.

As an annoyed Jim got out of his chair, he could swear he saw her wink at him. The annoyed-turned confused trollhunter cocked an eyebrow as he accidentally bumped into Seamus, one of Steve's friends, before he sat next to Clair in the front row. While Jim thinks he's able to keep his composure, he can hear his own heartbeat thumping painfully inside his ear. Clair gave him an aside glance before immediately going back to his notebook. Jim looked back at Mary, who watched him and Clair intently like they were the juiciest thing ever.

"_Talk to him,_" Toby loudly whispered, accentuating his words with a hand motion.

Jim's mind was racing.

_What do I do? What do I say? Do I pretend like nothing happened? Do I pretend like nothing's GOING TO happen? WHY IS IT SO HOT IN HERE?!_

Jim thumbed through his backpack and felt the surface of his amulet. Its glow wedged between two of his textbooks, the light slowly expanding and contracting, ready to armor up the moment he wants it to, having finally gotten a grip on transforming on command.

_That grit-shaka thing would have come in handy right about now. The tension is killing me!_

Early morning after Draal told him about this performance-enhancing magical whatever, Jim left home much earlier than he usually did to find one. He went all over trollmarket looking for one, but no one had one. Half of the trolls he asked simply told him "no", the other half practically boarded up their windows at the first mention of it. Even RotGuts didn't have one. Blinky caught wind of what Jim was looking for and wound up giving him a very thorough lecture about "cutting corners on a page just making two more corners" or some other fortune-cookie koan he found written on a public-park bench.

No "Fearless Trollhunter" for Jim. Where's Bular when you need him?

* * *

"Oh, be some other name. What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet."

_Not as sweet as thee._

"That's not the line Jim," said Clair.

_Wait, did I say that out loud?_

"Uh..." said Jim, his eyes darting between Clair and the rest of the cast. "Yeah... I, uh, I thought why not punch up the comedy and add a little action and _je ne sais quoi_..."

_Don't stop digging now, Jim. Dig deeper. You'll reach Hell eventually._

"How about we do it the way it was originally written?" Said Clair. "You've been acting really weird lately. You're throwing parties, trashing my house, and now this?"

_Clair thinks you're an idiot! Abort abort! WIDE-LOAD REVERSING, WIDE-LOAD REVERSING!_

"I know you think you're being cool, but this is not how to do it."

* * *

**I'd like to think that politics among trolls related to things like gender and sexual orientation are complicated and have their own standards and rules and all of that. As sweet as it would be for it not to be a big deal for the idea of same-sex partnerships in a polly-anna "love is love and no one cares" utopia, I always find that sort of thing dull and a little distracting, regardless of whether this society is populated by humans or not. I'll need to give it more thought before I ever write a story that touches upon this directly.**

**Also, while the whole "Fearless Fool" trope is not a bad one, I found the fact that Draal of all people would bend the first rule of trollhunting for his father's successor after they made up with a gumm-gumm artifact to be a bit of a stretch, so I figured that it was better if I omitted that little part of the episode.**


End file.
